


good game

by unrain



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 21:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17475536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrain/pseuds/unrain
Summary: I don’t like you, but I can’t deny that your shot was a game winnersprawls around Kevin’s throat.Neil’s words are a fucking joke in comparison. It’s not quite the death sentence that is a simplehior ahello—which is a soulmark that’s kind of pathetically tragic to have in this day and age, because it just makes everything a trillion times more difficult and is basically the equivalent of your soulmate kissing you goodbye and sayingsee you never. But Neil’s words are pretty damn close to being that pathetically tragic. If only his soulmate wasn’t so unimaginative anddull.





	good game

_I don’t like you, but I can’t deny that your shot was a game winner_ sprawls around Kevin’s throat like a goddamn choker, stark white against dark brown skin, all tall and big letters that curl neatly into each other but betrays a barely contained energy. Kevin usually covers it up in public with sports tape so it looks like he’s actually wearing a white choker, but all things called decency and private space are violently thrown aside in the locker room among Neil and Kevin’s teammates and they’ve all seen each other’s marks. Their teammates chirp Kevin for it because the words themselves are hilarious, but it’s also obvious that whoever Kevin’s soulmate turns out to be, they must be a force to be reckon with, just by how overt the mark is.

Neil has heard of Thea Muldani—it’s kind of hard not to, seeing as she’s one of the most prolific strikers out there at the moment and was put in the Top 100 NEL players of all times, _Jesus Christ_ —they’ve even played together before, but he would never even in a hundred years dare to presume that they were close enough he could ask her about her words. Not that he ever gave it a thought, up and until the moment when the buzzer rings on the Cup finale and the scoreboard tells Neil that all the blood, sweat and tears he and his team has put in this season was just _almost_ enough and he lines up behind Kevin to greet the other team with a clenched jaw and sharp nods and pricking eyes to their joyous _good game_ s. And then, _then_ , Neil sees Muldani grab Kevin firmly by his forearm in front of him, look him dead into his eyes and mouth Kevin’s words.

Neil realizes Muldani must have the words _We both know that between you and I, you’re the real winner tonight_ splashed on her body somewhere a split second after Kevin says the words, and then he sees both of their eyes light up and they begin to fucking _giggle_ in the middle of the goddamn court. Trying to avoid a media frenzy, Neil pushes Kevin forward, because Neil’s sad, and Neil’s irritated, and Neil’s pissed off, but hell, Kevin’s his brother and he’s happy for him and trying to save a chance for Kevin to actually be able to talk to Muldani afterwards. So on they have to go.

Neil squeezes Muldani’s forearm and almost smiles at the way she visibly steels herself from looking behind her at Kevin.

“It’s going to be all right,” Neil says, and how ironic that he’s the one reassuring the winner of the game tonight. Reassuring _Thea Muldani_. Ha fucking ha, how is this his fucking life? But Muldani smiles at him and nods, giving an extra squeeze in appreciation before they let go of each other to greet the next in line.

It’s Minyard.

“Good game,” he says with his usual nonchalance and indifference, and it hits Neil again with full force that they lost. They lost. Neil only nods at Minyard before moving on as fast as possible. He wants out before he begins to cry because he absolutely does not want to start in front of Minyard.

Thankfully the paparazzi ( _sports journalists_ , Kevin corrects Neil in his head, which, _fuck off_ —) doesn’t seem to have caught on the impromptu soulmate meeting in the middle of the court, and Neil is only bombarded with questions about the loss and how he feels and how the team is and what went wrong exactly and _how does it feel that Minyard won against you, once again?_

And Neil swallows his pride, choking it down and sucking it up, because playing the game on the court means playing the game on the scrum and he gives up all the clichés he knows. We played our top game, but so did the other team. When two great teams on their A game comes together, it’s only a matter of luck. It sucks losing tonight, but we’ll come back again, better than ever, and we’ll win next year for sure. Minyard’s the best goalie on the court to this day, and the only thing I want to say to him is congratulations. Yeah. Yeah.

Neil gives himself a moment to worry about being too abrupt, too obtrusive, in front of the camera, but then he brushes it off and walks to the locker rooms. Come tomorrow morning, the words will have been twisted enough to make blown up headliners and him like a petty and whining child. They always do. Minyard is the cool and intimidating goalie that got picked first at the draft, and Josten is the hotheaded striker who is way too mouthy for a guy who got picked second. As if being picked second is bad. Neil knows it isn’t. Well, he knows it now. But that day has truly cemented them being rivals, the star-crossed kind. The until-death-do-us-apart kind. Neil hasn’t figured out who is going to kill who first yet.

It might be him, Neil thinks, when he follows Kevin as moral support to the bar downtown to meet up with Muldani and he sees Minyard nursing a beer by himself on a table by the corner. Muldani’s team are the rowdiest bunch in the bar, basically dominating the whole space, fans cheering with them and basically looking like the kings and queens of the world. Seeing Minyard alone by himself while his whole world celebrates around him makes Neil’s stomach turn. Maybe it’s because if Neil had won, he would’ve been in his highest high, screaming his throat off on top of the roof and not caring about inconveniencing anyone with his delight. Maybe it’s because Neil has always known that he cared more about the game than Minyard and yet Minyard still wins effortlessly all the time.

Or maybe it’s because Minyard just looks so damn lonely, hunched over his beer and shrinking under his own shadow.

By the time Neil forces himself to rip his gaze off Minyard, Kevin has disappeared. Neil curses under his breath and adjusts his cap, keeping his eyes down, because wow, what the fuck, Kevin being a thoughtless idiot is a world-known fact and as his resident babysitter, Neil is now officially dumber than him for not thinking about how suspicious it must be for them to approach their rival team just after a colossal slaughter. And now Kevin has left him alone. Fantastic.

Before he can think any better, he approaches Minyard’s table, sitting across from him. Minyard glances lazily up—because everything about Minyard is _effortless_ —before he freezes, stumbling, clearly not expecting Neil in front of him.

Raising his brows, Minyard drawls, “Didn’t think you’d be up for a fuck tonight.”

This is a bad idea. This is the worst thing that Neil can do, right after losing the Cup finale. Not because leaked pictures of Josten and Minyard cozying it up in a bar right afterwards said loss wouldn’t become a nightmare for Neil’s PR management team, because yes, he’s earned himself a PR team that manages just him. The worst wouldn’t even be that the media figured out that they had a fuckbuddy situation for years now. The worst would be that the media got wind that everything about the famous Josten and Minyard duo is one-sided. Neil’s in a one-sided rivalry. Neil’s in a one-sided love.

Neil is always trying his best, but he feels like he’ll never catch up to Minyard, and tonight is just another affirmation of that.

Neil snorts at Minyard's assumption, because the nerve, but he's also kind of snorting at himself, because Neil knows he would if Minyard was offering, even tonight. “I’m not. I dragged Kevin down here so he would actually talk to his soulmate. You know he wouldn’t have the guts to do otherwise.”

Minyard pushes his glass of beer toward Neil, looks at him through his eyelashes. “Does your captain know you talk shit about him behind his back to anyone who will listen?”

Neil lifts the glass and winces at the putrid smell, but he chugs it down because he needs something. Anything but looking at Minyard. He doesn’t know what to do when he looks like that, when he looks at Neil like that. In those moments, Minyard is the fucking sun and Neil can’t do anything but look at him from the corner of his eye because Minyard’s so fucking bright. The words on Neil’s skin throbs, _good game_ printed in small, jumbled letters on the skin along his fifth rib, right against his heart, and it’s not the first time Neil resents his soulmate. Because Neil doesn’t like that something is predestined for him, and yet he could’ve gotten used to the idea of a soulmate out there for him, except that, why, oh why is his soulmate’s first words to him the same words thousands of strangers tell him all the time? Journalists, fans, random strangers on the street. They could be anyone, and the only thing Neil knows is that they must be the most uncreative person known to God.

Mostly, Neil resents his soulmate for not being Minyard.

The funny part is that Neil can’t remember meeting or being introduced to Minyard before playing against him, and so the first words Minyard has said to him might very well be _good game_ , except Neil can’t recall and Minyard hasn’t said anything and he would definitely say something if Neil’s words were scrawled on his left arm, the one he always covers with a black armband, even in bed.

“Fuck off,” Neil says, belatedly, against the rim of the glass. “Kevin’s got his soulmate, and his soulmate found him. Like he would care right now.”

“Jealous?” Minyard says.

Not of him, Neil doesn’t say, glancing at Minyard’s left hand tapping nonsensically at the table edge.

“No,” Neil sighs, looking away and putting down the glass with a clink. “I’m happy for him. Really.”

Minyard tilts his head, hums, as if to say _there you go_. They don’t say anything for a moment, just looking around and letting the music and celebrations engulf them, the silence between them heavy but not awkward. Kind of comforting, actually. Warm. Content, sort of. Until—

“At least his soulmark was reciprocated,” Minyard says, and Neil almost gives himself whiplash, snapping his head around to look at Minyard. Minyard doesn’t look at him, but it doesn’t look so effortless. It looks deliberate, the way he’s carefully and pointedly not looking in Neil’s direction, and it’s enough to make Neil lose his breath.

Minyard knows, is all Neil can think, he knows that Neil is in love with him and is wondering if his words are Minyard’s, and this is Minyard’s way of saying they’re not. That Minyard doesn’t have Neil’s words on his skin. That Neil needs to cool down with that shit. To back off.

Neil can back off.

“What are you doing,” Minyard says, deadpan and all nonchalance, effortlessly cool, as Neil slides down on the couch beside him, pushing himself flush against Minyard’s side and mouthing at Minyard’s throat.

“Inviting you to take me back to your hotel room for some careless fun,” Neil says, kissing Minyard’s—Andrew’s—ear, along his jawline, before Andrew pushes him off and away. Neil huffs, falls back against the couch and tries to squash down his disappointment, but then Andrew’s hand is wrapped around his wrist, pulling him up and through the crowded bar.

They fuck while Neil wears Andrew’s gold medal around his neck, the metal heavy and cold where it falls against the sports tape covering Neil’s words. Neil grips Andrew’s armband too hard and every touch is too lingering, too desperate, but if Neil cries a little, it’s easy to wave it off as anger at tonight’s loss, and nothing else.

**Author's Note:**

> originally published 2018-09-26. original end notes:
> 
> andrew says _good game_ to neil in the first game they played against each other!!!!! but neil doesn't say anything back, because it was during the period of his life where he tried to say outrageous things to every stranger who came up and said those words to him in the hopes of his soulmate recognizing him, but it's kind of difficult to come up with short outrageous things to say during lineup after a game, so neil opted to just, not say anything to players. he's not trying to find his soulmate after he met andrew, so he doesn't care to say anything unique anymore, just a good game or thanks back.
> 
> andrew's words are _fuck off_ , which is the first thing neil says to him when andrew goes up to him to say congrats on getting picked second, and neil thinks andrew is being condescending. andrew knows that neil is his soulmate, but he thinks it's unreciprocated because neil has never reacted to anything andrew has said. i love idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> hope you enjoyed!!!!!!!!!!! i live for comments and kudos and feedback!!!!!!!!!!


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